Management, manpower and manholes

My editor at The Executive asked me to write something about management. The brief was manifestly short but effective enough. He said “let it have humour, let it be brief”.

Sounded manageable enough. Or not? My initial reaction was to work on it as asked, then on second thoughts, while fretting at the command, I thought of sending him just a briefer-than-his-brief article. Not sure if that would have tickled him pink. But the cheeky article was going to be entitled “Management”; the whole article was going to say “management”. Yes I think that would have been the most humorous thing to write about this subject. To be honest I find anything that is written seriously about management to be unbelievably baffling and full of unwitting but effective humour. Humour by non-design, which I imagine is the best managed humour.

Ask anyone who runs a business to explain in plain English the fundamentals of management and he/she/it will look at you vaguely and worryingly. The gurus of the management world might trail off a few mantras and all manner of expositions but the man in the high or low street or in top positions will be stumped. By the way do we now still run businesses? With recessions rampant and all-pervading crises and highfaluting defaulters I doubt if anyone does any running. It’s more like walking, or propping your business on its surely but sorely disintegrating crutches.

Regarding my editor’s article request I then reflected further and stopped my brief, scantily researched article from being sent. I love my job as contributor to The Executive and I find the editor more than affable and greatly on the ball. So why get myself fried or fired? That could be called something like management by firing squad; or hara-kiri for a two-word article. And I find this magazine quite a great shake. “I shot myself in the left foot and right by not submitting proper copy to editor” could be the title of the article had I been fired or told bluntly to desist from writing for this publication.

So no I was more than resolved not to follow that terrible path to ignominy and perfidy and extinction or exile from The Executive. The ex-writer of The Executive hardly sounds good on any CV especially in these tough-to-manage times.

So I now have the daunting task of still not getting myself fired: the task ahead is simple enough. I must, by all means available, manage to convince the management of The Executive that I can manage an article about management: and the article must make people laugh, snigger or smile instead of read, ponder and understand next to naught.

Consider this: this is the first of a series of articles which are going to be penned by me (unless I manage to fall onto my own spiral of mis-managed failure) and not by some other upstart who writes like me or better than me. If another contributor is given the same brief as me I promise I will muster enough strength and organise enough pickets and will manage to pick and settle fights with all and sundry rivals. I will also make it my own mantra-turned-into-tangibility to knock off by gun, musket, cannon, hemp, fingers, toes, claws or whatever instrument is at hand (even hand grenades could come in handy) to murder in the most vile way any intruder who happens to be able to write anything about management.

That must have been the longest, least instructive, hardly inspired, most entangled piece of introduction in the history of management and writing. Let me now most intelligently discuss “management”.

I do not know why this happens but whenever there is a word that could cause some trouble, there in it, in full force and fully frontally, lies “man”. Take man out of management and all you end up with is “age” and a few other letters. Why oh why do women not complain that men have to manage while women dictate and run everything smoothly? Men run everything down from economies to stock exchanges and have done so ever since a naked Eve baked an apple pie and managed singlehandedly to get part of the apple stuck in man’s throat and all humanity to have to toil, trouble and work and discuss and formulate best management practices.

Some wit in medieval times must have said: if woman was meant to be a dishwasher, man must have been inventive enough to devise a machine to wash those soiled dishes. Man invented, or marketed heavily, the dishwasher circa the same age that woman rebelled, burned her bra, became equal to man and did manage to get most men to cooperate and wash, rinse, dry or at least stack dishes. I have no clue who said the pithy words about dish-washing: if I had management skills I’d get my inexistent but obviously sex-neutered secretary to check out who the sage (or sages) was but as I lack these rudimentary skills I will further desist from asking or from doing it myself. Google be damned.

Here we now have a few important management cases which are worth noting. In medieval times if you were a woman and you complained even internally to yourself about your husband you would be tried or lashed or disembowelled. Even if the husband had tied you to his manor fence, the chances were that an ecclesiastical judge would magically sprout next to you, untie you and take you by the nose straight into your own fiery cauldron of bubbling newt legs and batty bat’s tongues.

Now if said wife was sadly cast to her sizzling perdition and if said (and sadder) husband could not find any other woman to wed, his manor would soon turn into a terribly mismanaged one. Without his wife to manage the children, the servants and slaves and the adjacent farm with its various chicks, capons and pheasants and other pleasantly feathered friends, the entire manor would soon end up in a state of utter chaos. Job losses would follow and then famine. Slaves and workers would revolt and the man would end up penniless and chased by creditors and his ex-employees. Management lesson: assets are not to be tied uselessly when they can be more productive. Mini lesson: do not get any outsiders like the ecclesiastical judge to interfere in your affairs. Consultants might be good but if they give bad advice the effect can be lethal.

Thankfully years later woman (now look at that word: even what we call the female sex has a man or a male lurking maniacally in it)) took control of her life, freed herself of the chains of slavery and fought to be on equal footing with her spouse. All of a sudden we had two managers for the manor and ended up with all manner of madness. Thank heavens the erring judge who cast errant women into boiling pots was also discarded and so life without torture by religious zealots became easier for everyone to manage.

As one famed consultant guru really quipped : “Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.” That’s Peter F. Drucker talking so I imagine we could accept it as a bit more authoritative than my words.


Now after showing off my knowledge of management savants, and what they said, I think I have said enough about management and will send this to my editor. In his patience and his charity I truly trust. Either that or this poor article will end up going down the drain: down the terrible manhole that manages all human effluvia and detritus.

This article first appeared in The Executive magazine

The sunflower: a powerful symbol for Hospice Malta

“A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members."
Mahatma Gandhi

In today’s world we are constantly bombarded with various messages − from text messages to emails and from television broadcasts to products and services that are lauded for their super-efficiency and usefulness. In this increasingly instant society we are faced with choice, colour and diversity in everything, and so our time to reflect and take reasoned decisions is sometimes sidetracked, resulting in rash unqualified ones.

We are making choices all the time and whoever thinks the media or the surroundings do not affect our choices is either an idealist or a dreamer. We choose what size of TV we want to make us happier, which toothpaste makes our teeth brightest and which mode of transport suits us most.

Unfortunately status features in all we do and choose, even if, like the idealist mentioned above, we might think we always take proper, unbiased decisions in our choices of consumer and non-consumer needs.

Faced with this barrage of messages and competing brands a commercial or non- commercial enterprise has to think hard and evaluate how to position itself and how to brand itself in a market which is saturated with all these competing and varied messages and messengers.

Commercial brands which have the power of purchasing marketing and public relations space always have an advantage over the less visible, non-commercial entities which try hard to give a service and be as visible as possible.

When Hospice Malta decided to undertake a rebranding exercise these thoughts were kept firmly in mind. The task was not a simple one.

Hospice Malta, or the Malta Hospice Movement as it was known, contacted Defined Branding to help lead the way in the strategy and design of its new identity. Defined Branding, led by Jody Fiteni and a dedicated team of creative designers delved deep into what was needed both from an aesthetic and a functional perspective.
Hospice Malta was not an unknown entity. On the contrary, in the palliative care sphere, it was not only respected but known to be the only group offering the noble service of looking after the terminally ill (persons suffering from terminal cancer, motor neurone disease, end-stage respiratory and heart disease)while providing support to their families, friends and colleagues.

Those people who used this service over the years are always full of praise for the hospice and what it offers. This made the job of rebranding that much easier because the “product” was visible, innovative and highly respected. Therefore market penetration was already happening.

In this distressing scenario where the eventual death of a close family member is involved it is never easy to think of the service offered as being a marketable product. But unfortunately, while being a sad fact of life, it is also a reality that this is what has to be done as otherwise brand awareness already established by the commendable service offered risks being diluted or, if not nurtured properly, lost.

The rebranding exercisestarted off with the visual change of the brand identity. The old logo, while depicting a visually attractive sunflower, was limited in what could be done to it in the graphic manipulation needed for proper depiction of the brand identity. Defined Branding’s design team zoomed in on the effectiveness of the old logo and retained its main element, the sunflower.

The whole ethos behind the brand identity is centred around the sunflower. The sunflower depicts compassion (the sunflower seeds). The seed grid at the centre of the sunflower represents the patients and is surrounded by (palliative) care and respectful dignity as represented by the petals. Compassion presents itself as an opportunity to truly care for fellow human beings.

The sunflower petals show the dignity that is strongly recommended by all involved in palliative care. As in all flowering plants, the bright yellow petals of the flower attract pollinating insects which fertilise and help to create the seeding head. Sunflowers face and follow the sun across the sky, transferring solar energy to the seeds.

The sunflower leaves stand for human care: most plants need solar energy which they photosynthesise into energy for growth. For Hospice Malta these would be the caring hands of the people who are part of the organisation.

The name was changed to the easier to remember and simpler “Hospice Malta”. The new name keeps the most important parts of the old one but reflects more care and softness. It is shorter, more easily remembered and more striking; it also lends itself ideally to make it more modern with a simple addition of .org on the url web address for universal access on www.hospicemalta.org.

The 3-word tagline encompasses the spirit of the brand. Again care and understanding of what the organisation stands for was used to give Hospice Malta the most meaningful words which explain in short but directly what Hospice stands for: care, compassion, dignity. These words best reflect the core values and the whole spirit of the organisation. These three words also complement the sunflower logo’s 3 components of leaves, petals and seed grid.

The main beneficiaries of the hospice work are people who are suffering and who see their close family suffer. But as the sunflower depicted in the brand identity shows, the care that is offered by Hospice Malta makes life for the sufferers a bit brighter and also sows the seeds for more care for more people.

The rebranding exercise in the evolution of Hospice Malta, which is always in need of volunteers and donations as the services offered which are all free have to be maintained and expanded.

Like the sunflower, and the miracle it perpetuates by its own re-energising, Hospice Malta gives hope and dignity where little or none exist. The need for Hospice to retain and expand its visibility and evolve core services is crucial for its future and for that of patients and their loved ones.

More information about Hospice Malta can be found at www.hospicemalta.org. For more information about their branding please log on to www.definedbranding.com

This article first appeared in The Sunday Times on October 16, 2011

Of tattoos, piercings and old age

One of the worst things to happen to Adam, Eve and their progeny, which I imagine includes me, was when God decreed that we should suffer old age. If Eve had resisted that silly apple, man and woman would not have toiled, we – the male of the species – would have no Adam’s apple stuck in our throat, we wouldn’t have had to buy clothes (and get them to match and fit) and we wouldn’t have felt cold or hot and sticky. If only Eve had preferred the now proverbial kiwis.

Now I don’t wish to rage against old age at all. After all, I’m practically there – just five short years from the ID that grants me cheap tickets to opera and bus rides and free ferrying to and from Gozo. Oh the excitement of it all: plying up and down the Malta-Gozo channel all for free. Seeing all those harried eye surgeons trying desperately to jump queues would give me good fun.

Then, after the magical ID card that proves beyond all doubt that I am an old git, I might get, a few years later, a kind of pension. Then again only God knows if I will. Are those things guaranteed? Or could it be that if we keep bailing out the Greeks and the other naughty members of the eurozone with loads and loads of euro dosh, the Finance Minister of Malta might have to say: Forgive me, we don’t have any more euros to dish out? But, the Finance Minister will say: You can always go and overnight for free at the dazzling Acropolis, which might then have become a Finnish hotel. So, hopefully, by the time I’m still sane and hale enough I might be pensioned off by the state to do nothing after a lifetime of toil, trouble and dishing out taxes. And after a lifetime of longing to do nothing while being paid, I will yearn to do something useful to keep busy. Are we descendants of Adam ever happy or are we damned to eternal grumbling because of that silly fruit?

Maybe by the time I retire, Tonio Fenech, or whoever might be the next financial supremo (or supreme fiasco), will have found a way of getting the Gozo ferries to carry all old-age pensioners not just to Mġarr but also to the port of Athens. Mind you, if I’m even luckier I could get myself elected to Parliament and so be assured of some super anti-inflation pension. I will share the distinction with fellow parliamentarians of having done nothing before I retire to continue doing nothing and being paid handsomely ever after.

My gripe initially was against old age: grr, it grates so much. I should hardly complain: I’m old, it’s true, but I feel young and get others to regularly laugh at me while others are young, feel old and never ever laugh. It’s not how old you are they say but how old you feel. But a sure sign of old age is when I, who try to think of myself as hip (that word surely proves I’m old) and liberal and open to new ideas, act and sound as old and conservative as the Cabinet of ministers. My liberal credentials are all an illusion actually when I think how I gape and gawk and rant about some new fad or an old fad that takes off once again in a bigger way than ever. Can anyone explain what is great and lovely when you turn your body into an art gallery and into an installation piece with tattoos and piercings and stuff dangling from every nook and cranny of your body?

Hating tattoos and piercings must now place me with the detested guys who are part of the establishment. Ok, I plead guilty as charged. But let’s try examining the situation gravely, objectively and with an open mind. Anyone who disfigures, in any way, his/her body should be shot. Well, if not shot, subjected to something drastic to teach them a lesson as indelible as their tattoos. I referred to their tattooed bodies as an art gallery but most is horrid art, cheap rubbishy stuff, like a lot of the art in art galleries today.

So what is my proof that my take on tattoos is right? Let’s imagine a scenario in 30 years’ time. London looters are at it again. The scene is exactly the same as a few weeks ago: looting, setting fire and causing undue mayhem on all that is still fine and standing in 2041. The Prime Minister of England is in some foreign resort sunning himself – or by that time mooning himself as no one will then be allowed to expose himself or herself to any malicious sun’s rays. Camera pans onto the British Prime Minister: it could be the lack of proper lighting but the Prime Minister is seen covered in tattoos and piercings.

Could a Prime Minister full of tattoos and piercings be taken seriously? Would he be able to whizz back to England, sort out the rioters and be back on his holiday in less than 24 hours?

Even a football coach covered in tattoos would not command any respect. I mean can you imagine a heavily tattooed Fabio Capello shouting out his commands? Or can the respect that all Arsenal fans have for Arsene Wenger be still apparent if he had a nose ring?

Now zoom back home but imagine the tattoo generational change had happened a few years ago. We’d have our Prime Minister with a tiny tattoo (not his style to be too liberal) on his forehead saying: “Kate’s”. Now wouldn’t that be cute and homely?
Or what about Joseph Muscat’s body? His would surely be fuller than Lawrence Gonzi’s. He’d have his tattoos scattered all over him in multi-coloured garish and gayish style to resemble an amazing rainbow coat.

Then, all over his body, he’d have huge letters spelling: I LOVE… with various names tattooed: Luni, Dotty, Sue Ellen, Julian, Juliet, Jules, Fredu, Karmenu, Ġuża and anything that nearly rhymes with Michelle, JPO and Prim.

Do I need to say more? Can we trust these people if besides politicians they were also tattooed? So is it just my old, creaking creeping age that is the culprit or are tattoos and piercings just plain wrong?

This article first appeared in The Times October 6, 2011

Queuing up for a couple of cucumbers

What’s happening to Malta? Keep the silly season here or we shall all die of a serious problem: the problem of taking ourselves way too seriously. And if all culprits of this malaise are to be shot I’d have to arrange a firing squad for myself. I promised myself I’d write about humour or the lack of it on this sweet land of ours and what do I do? I have already, in my intro, mentioned the words serious, problem, death and malaise. Google the article and you’d be forgiven to think that I’m Nostradamus prophesying some illness-induced universal doom.
But then, joking and firing of guns and missiles apart, we do take things seriously, don’t we? Maybe we’ve forgotten (have we as a nation started suffering from short-term memory loss?) that we took a few centuries to discuss when the divorce referendum was to be held.
Then a few more parliamentary sessions that dragged on till kingdom come to discuss the proper wording and then we debated the result and the resultant tussle with the conscience of some and the resultant passage of a law that I would have thought should have been on our statute books for long decades. But it is a land of strange deeds indeed.
Now we have gone into the sexual peccadilloes of Cyrus Engerer, the deputy mayor of Sliema, and his lover or former lover. And also his new-found love for Labour and new-found hatred for his old love, the Nationalists. I just hope he does not have impure pictures of his old political love. There’s love and perfidy in the air, so all is fun and frolic.
Cyrus is a politician, besides being other things, which he is more than free to be, lest I be accused of homophobia or some other phobia. But if he did send those photos of his ex-lover to friends, foes and other countrymen then the man is not a trustworthy lover. If a man cannot be trusted in love can he be trusted to keep our roads in Sliema nice and tidy?
But there is more hidden humour and layers of unbelievable fun. Besides the gutter sniggering of silly macho men whose horrid homophobia would scare the pants off any Commissioner of Police of the politically correct, the Cyrus saga seems to have been scripted by some creative comedian the likes of which Hollywood, Bollywood or even Eileen Montesin have never even dreamt about.
Let’s see some of the dramatis personae involved. No, let’s first ask the Stitching guy, who had a play banned because he was way too forward, to come along and get this dramatised. The censors would have a field day banning it. Too lurid for our immature minds, they would all cry in unison. Said drama would have us all at last in stitches and, maybe, we would realise we do take things, even petty things, too seriously.
Back to the cast in this long-drawn-out saga. We have a dad interrogated by the police for allegedly smoking pot; a Cyrus-lover who dumps Cyrus then forgives Cyrus but doesn’t really and who then dumps his lawyers as they are too Labour for him. We have the Labour Party leader who progressively accepts Cyrus into his rainbow fold. We have a high-ranking government official who is also godfather of Cyrus and who phones the Police Commissioner to touch base and, finally, we have a Saviour who remembers three years after the occurrence that said godfather of Cyrus used to visit him in the dead of night to give him juicy tidbits and tittle-tattle to use and publicise in his newspaper. In our Saviour we hardly trust.
If some of these plots and sub-plots were dreamt up by that silly scriptwriter mentioned above he or she would surely have been dragged to court accused of being high on pot. “The plot,” the magistrate would pronounce from his podium, “is way too silly. Console yourself in tears and resign your position this very instant!”
While all this madness was actually happening in Malta and not in some silly and inebriated mind, other stories were unfolding. A man who went on hunger strike hit the news. Again, the Labour camp jumped into the fray.
Camp, unfortunately, could be an opportune word to drag into the discussion, what with Cyrus and the gay porn star being so much in the limelight. But, then again, with Labour dying to show its rainbow credentials maybe it does want to be associated with the world of camp and maybe (just maybe) even drag and drag queens and such lurid stuff. Maybe besides the usual mayhem on Mayday, when Labour leaders all join hands bedecked in flowery wear, maybe they will now also dress in drag. Not sure if we can ask Lawrence Gonzi and his erstwhile ministers to do the same. I think their strong conscience will prick them and stop them.
So where was I? Oh yes, porn in the land. The hunger striker wanted to oust poor, beleaguered Austin Gatt. The Prime Minister, always great at saving, salvaging and solving, visited the striker who immediately ate two kiwis and Dr Gatt sighed a great sigh of relief. Not sure if it was coincidental but some Arriva routes were changed just after the man on hunger strike conceded to eat the prime kiwis.
Now the porn star-turned-human-rights-activist has embraced Dr Gonzi and his ways to the utter exasperation of Joseph Muscat.
The Labour camp was stunned: they were sure that the porn industry was all agog and behind them and their modern new ways of doing politics under one great umbrella. Now the gutter industry, or at least one of its most visible exponents in Malta, has been bought for a couple of kiwis. At least in his infinite knowledge, Dr Gonzi supplied him with kiwis.
Only divine intervention would have saved the day for the scriptwriter of our never-ending farce if he had offered the man a cucumber and a couple of figs.

This article first appeared in The Times August 27, 2011

Santa Maria, Malta's top public holiday

Santa Maria, on 15 August is the day for you if you love festas, food, colour and joyous noise all meshed up in a panoply of fireworks and revelry. However, those not so festa friendly, may say ‘save us from Santa Maria’!

Malta is always colourful but in summer we do go ballistic especially in commemoration of village and town patron saints. Seeing the revelry that goes on during the festa band marches, it’s hard to remember that these feasts are to commemorate people who probably led an austere or merit-worthy life of good deeds.

For a glorious day of feasts nothing beats August 15. In Malta and Gozo the day is known as Santa Maria (or Santa Marija, its Maltese spelling); it’s also a public holiday. There are seven localities which hold a festa that day. Celebrations are held in style and with pizzazz in piazzas. The day is in commemoration of the ascension of Our Lady, mother of Christ. Besides the fireworks and colourful stuff, you also get a variety of food, drink and festive marches with people having endless fun. Our Lady’s entry into heaven is commemorated so grandly here on earth that she might feel a bit let down with what happens up in the heavens above.

Maltese love noise and we also adore making merry for whatever reason, be it the World Cup or the build-up to a general election. It’s not always clear whether the cause or saint being officially commemorated is really the reason for the fun which sees people cavorting in a semi- or fully-drunken stupor. But who cares why we celebrate. We do and we love seeing visitors joining in the fun.

Santa Marija is however also celebrated solemnly (religiously and in good taste in churches throughout Malta) and with gusto in these localities whose parishes honour her: Attard, Mosta, Mqabba, Qrendi, Gudja, Ghaxaq, and Victoria, Gozo (for a full list of Parish Feasts in August, click here).

I must warn you about Gozo on the eve of Santa Maria. A horde of Malta residents heads to Gozo around the 15 August as the week around Santa Marija see most firms shutdown for a summer recess. Ferry trips to and from the sister isle can be a bit more time consuming. If you are going up, remember to take a lot of water and sun protection as you’ll get dehydrated out on the scorching Tarmac at the Cirkewwa ferry terminal as you can wait up to an hour with no shade! Ah, what we do for a holiday! Perhaps it’s best to stay in those airy, cool churches and celebrate the feast that way!

This article first appeared in Malta Inside Out August 2011
Photo: Leslie Vella

The Libyan crisis: a personal view

While business is important nothing is as harrowing as human loss

After the quick ouster of Ben Ali from Tunisia and Mubarak from Egypt some thought or hoped that Gaddafi would be hounded out of Libya in a few days or weeks. The scenario imagined was that the swift transition would then hopefully lead to a type of democratic government; after a few months or years of reconstruction all would have turned rosy and business-like in Libya and also in the neighbouring lands. Dreams obviously are hardly the usual currency used in these times and situations. And the dream of a resurgent, free Libya has sadly turned into a veritable nightmare with its attendant loss of lives and material.

The Libyan crisis has gone on for quite a while and for a long time did not seem to abate or find any solution. Only lately, and after incessant attacks by Nato and some other allies and a seeming draining of the inestimable riches of the old regime, does it seem probable that the fall of Gaddafi is imminent. The rebels, even if assisted by some pounding from the air by NATO and other allies, did not seem to have made much headway against the forces of Gaddafi. Deaths, strategic rape and maiming by the Gaddafi troops, coupled with inefficient and ineffectual rebel forces had contributed to the long-drawn-out stalemate. Gaddafi, his inner and extended family and his cohorts of business associates and backers, desperately tried to keep their hold on Libya and take back the parts of the country they had lost to the rebels. In the meantime people were dying and getting injured.
It is quite amazing that after 40 odd years of subduing and subjugating suffering, the Libyan people, following on the lead of neighbouring populations, rose and seemed to be heading to the same quick results. Gaddafi seemed lost and in a panic – notably when, for some strange PR or morale effect, he first spoke to the nation under a clown’s umbrella after descending from a battered car. Even Saif el islam, his heir apparent, seemed cornered and promised in a bizarre way even “more” democracies and liberties. Now he has once again promised free elections. This promise, coupled with his father’s infamous threat to go from house to house and seek, hound and kill the rebels, seemed to indicate that even in the Gaddafi household not all was rosy and united.

Saif el islam Gaddafi, the son with the influential friends from the west and a loved champion of opening up Libya to more humane western-friendly methods, seemed to imply that in return for remaining in power the Gaddafis would shower the population with ‘more’ liberties. He said this while emphasising that the population is not exactly the most intelligent or deserving: but it doesn’t really matter as, he further implied, we Gaddafis have plenty of liberties in our sack to dish out. It is one of those bizarre stories that show up these tin-pot dictators, even if savvy-sounding and highly educated in the west, for what they really are: to them dishing out a few “liberties” would solve the problem. When the reality was, and unfortunately has, remained that what the population, or a vast majority of it, wants, first of all, is the immediate removal of the regime in toto, and the hope of a better way of life afterwards. Sadly when you have been suffering for over 40 years, any respite is good, so although there might be strange hands lurking behind the rebels, the ones who matter most –the people−want just that: the ouster of the tyrant and basic rights to live happily without constant worries and to have all the western attributes of free press, proper justice and the possibility of running your business or enterprise without interference.
That was the common dream but the nightmare scenario goes on and people go on dying. Unconfirmed and unconfirmable statistics talk of 10,000 dead amongst the rebels. The country which has one of the world’s most lucrative oil supplies is in a paralytic state and all this has contributed to more jitters in the world and plenty of worrying on our shores especially regarding the immigration influx, business and tourism angles.
It is only fair and right to worry and shed tears about the troubles we, as a nation, are facing. But it would be rather more humane and even proper decency to be more concerned with the shed blood and tears of the peoples of Libya. Even if one does not go into the merits or demerits of who is right and who is wrong, we all appreciate that there has been a horrid loss of lives. After living for so long in a country where basic human rights, which we in Malta and in the west take for granted, were denied, they asked for their own share of a better life and all they got was a barrage of tank and sniper fire. So even if the crisis in Libya comes off the centre stage of media attention, we should all keep in mind that all our suffering or potential suffering is a non-starter when compared to what the Libyan people had and have to endure.
We rightly worry about the consequences of the business backlash we are suffering in Malta; we also talk about the effects on the employment of people who were working in Libya; we talk of the potential harm to our tourism sector with bookings being cancelled because of our proximity to the war; we talk of the business ventures of Maltese companies which invested heavily in Libya; we talk of companies which have Libyan co-ownership and which therefore have an inflow of capital suspended because of sanctions; we talk of the very real onslaught of immigrants who are coming to our land and whom we cannot accommodate properly. All this is most blatantly and worryingly true but all pales into insignificance when we think of the dead and maimed and the grieving family members of the dead. All this should be kept in its proper perspective if we are to keep alive our humanitarian viewpoint.
When some of the comments regarding “our” suffering are taken into consideration it does seem that the racist slur on us is valid. We are not seen to commiserate in our feelings towards the Libyans because we, as a nation, seem to look at them with distaste. Would this apparent coolness of ours be the same if all this human suffering was happening in Britain, Spain or Italy? Only a hundred kilometers divide us from Libya and most Maltese people sound and look more like them than the vast number of Europeans to our North. And yet we do not seem to empathise enough. Malta definitely has a headache which has grown to a worrying degree because of the neighbouring troubles. But do we keep in mind that the neighbour, especially some of its people, has a terrible and, most probably, a malignant tumour? Our headache will take a few days to pass unless we speed up the recovery by popping a few pills into our system. Libya’s condition and the condition of its inhabitants is more worrying and could last long years of suffering and surgery. The country as a country we knew till a few months ago could die and out of it a warring or worrying two countries could be born. And we dare worry about us?
But although we should give more time and thought to the Libyan plight it is not right to sit back and do nothing. After all it is a terrible headache we have. And so to work and to proper work we should go. Is there anything that can be done in these circumstances and if the authorities, the nation in general and the institutions are doing anything, are they doing enough?
The Labour Party in opposition had called on Government to hold a parliamentary debate on the subject with a view to assisting the companies most at risk and most likely to have problems, with special emphasis on employment. The motion presented by the Labour Party talked of discussing the “real situation” of Maltese investment and investors in Libya. Real as opposed to fictitious? The Maltese Parliament seemed to be lost in simple semantics and long drawn out discussions regarding divorce or, to be more precise, the exact dating and wording of the divorce referendum. Now we will be going on and on about the proper wording of the divorce bill both before and after it is promulgated.
Offering assistance to companies stuck in the Libyan quagmire might seem right at first sight but can government intervene in this way and help companies which invested in a country which had a high risk factor? Further reading of the proposed Labour motion in Parliament which, it seems, will remain collecting various mothballs and whatever happens to undiscussed motions, reveals that the opposition are proposing that government assists the companies affected by the Libyan crisis without adding new tax burdens on the Maltese and Gozitan taxpayers. I doubt whether there exist too many options to assist these companies without a dip into the government’s coffers but maybe that is why government should accept to discuss the motion. It would be interesting to hear what the opposition’s ideas are to help the companies in distress without any money flowing out.
Government had pledged to give all stricken companies a longer timeframe to pay off their tax dues. This was a positive step. But if government does assist these companies materially this could give out the wrong message. In the future, if companies invest in countries with risky economies which usually give tantalising returns, they will do so with more confidence knowing full well that if that country falters the government would be there to bail them out.
A comparison was made with the way government acted when the 2008 recession to end all recessions hit or was soon to hit Malta. Then the government had rightly made calculated and opportune undertakings with some manufacturing companies which were most hit by the economic meltdown. What government offered these companies was help to give them enough oxygen to keep their employee levels and to generate more business. The turnaround of the world’s economies then found these companies even stronger so thanks to government assistance the employment levels of Malta were kept intact and this contributed to the economic turnaround of the whole of Malta. But no single market or line of markets was singled out.
No one has yet said what the investment level of Maltese companies in Libya is. And few have actually terminated any employment of staff stationed in Libya. Neither has the investment of Libyan companies in Malta been quantified. The estimated number of Maltese personnel working in Libya was at the time of the start of the hostilities given as 500. One of the few statistics that was announced by government was the number of companies that applied for assistance to Malta Enterprise. The number was 70 but no more details were announced of size of investment or of the assistance sought. Whatever the quantifiable numbers are, the ripple effects of all this is enormous. Besides the direct involvement and suffering of Maltese companies with huge investments in Libya and all the employees affected there are a vast number of effects the Libyan problem has and will have on the Maltese islands’ economy. Schools, accommodation rental, services rendered to people working in Libya, flights of expats who had a base in Malta but worked in Libya.
Just as Government is giving extended timeframes to these companies to settle their tax dues, maybe some assistance could be offered by associations like the Chamber of Commerce to make a case to places like the Freeport and the bonded stores to charge less for storage of merchandise which was destined for Libya. Right now the stock in these warehouses is not worth anything, as Libya and Libyan companies are not in a state to accept any commercial purchases. If Government owes anything to these companies maybe some form of expedited payment could be introduced to assist them in their cash flow plight.
All this and more creative thinking on the part of all the stakeholders needs to be done immediately so that the companies and the people who are suffering the indirect consequences of the problem in Libya will not carry on doing so unduly. Business of course will eventually stabilise. Countries ravaged by bitter civil wars, like Spain back in the thirties, have managed to somehow resolve their problems and suffering. Libya will be back on its feet, hopefully soon, although at the moment this seems rather unlikely. Hopefully the little assistance, whether moral or financial, offered to the companies caught in this Libyan crisis, will keep them buoyant and successful in other markets.
Government and the opposition were uncharacteristically united in how to tackle the Libyan crisis when it came to UN resolutions and any military action. They opted not to join any military strikes and hardly condemned the Gaddafi regime and when they did condemn it was always done to make sure it wasn’t too blatant. Except for one or two oblique comments, the Prime Minister, Dr Gonzi, hardly came out in favour of the rebels. The Labour party did even less. Was all this done most to ensure our investments remain intact? It also made us sound as the lovers of double speak, saying little as vaguely and in as contradictory a way as possible. There have been comments by our Minister of Foreign Affairs which could never be fully understood even by an expert in official verbiage.
By not taking sides we are trying to guarantee doing business with both sides. This could be more of a millstone for the Maltese nation and its investments than a good move. We have been acting like the perpetual indecisive people who prefer sitting on the fence and never taking sides. We dilly dally, hoping not to antagonise anyone when in actual fact we annoy both sides in the Libyan conflict as well as all the countries which are waging attacks on Libya. The fact that it has been a complete disaster does not mean we were right. Malta never condemned the attacks on Libya; it just said we are neutral and cannot be a part of a military campaign. Neutrality is an anachronism that should be binned as soon as possible. Neutral from whom? This neutrality stance was adopted when the world was divided in two superpower blocs intent on building unbelievable stockpiles of nuclear warheads and other war-like strategies and stratagems. As a concept it sounds more like a neutering of us even in the face of UN actions. Have the Maltese politicians forgotten that Bush (the older, less bellicose one) and Gorbachev ironically met in Malta and since then the cold war and all its attendant miseries have ended? And just because Germany did the same and did not offer to assist in the attacks on Libya does not mean it, or the decision, is right. The German fear of being tainted again with war and blood seems to have gone deep into their psyche and made them incapable of taking proper, decisive steps in military matters. It seemed strange and rang hollow that the biggest and the smallest nation in the EU washed their hands of any assistance in the military strikes in Libya.
This does not mean that the military action in Libya has been successful. It has been a disaster of a scale that even the old rat Gaddafi, who should be cowering and seeking refuge in some strange pariah state, has withstood it all for way too long. He will never regain his former ludicrously pompous glory and cannot hope to regain all his former bullying stands even if he miraculously still clings on to power by playing a game of chess. Ironically the USA, the former bully in any intervention, even when not sanctioned by the UN, wasnot bellicose enough and tried hard to be a jolly non-aggressive policeman.. Although a bungler and a bully, if George Bush (the younger) was in power he would have sent in his troops even faster than the UN could have called for a meeting. This might have compounded the problem but at least Gaddafi would have quaked and shook and could have fled even before the troops were sent. Instead all Gaddafi heard were some whimpers from the UN and the rest of the Western allies. France and Britain tried hard to act tough but alone, without the USA, they are a toothless couple.
Whatever our economic investment and whatever our status as special neighbour to Libya, we should have denounced the Gaddafi regime as corrupt, violent, anti-democratic and ruthless in its attacks against its own people. And we should have stated most strongly that we oppose the Gaddafi regime even if we might lose his support if he is to ever take over the whole country. It has always been a very strange country, with Gaddafi and his children holding a terrible grip on it. Strangely, the Gaddafis who seem mainly in charge ─ Muammar and Saif ─ both hold no official post and in fact the father once actually asked in his half-jocular half-ominous way what he was to resign from if he was not in charge and held no official post. So although they are de facto in charge they have no position. Having said all this, everyone – Gaddafis included−knows they were very much in charge and have unleashed long anti-democratic powers over their countrymen since Gaddafi took over way back in 1969.

Economies suffer, companies crash, and terrible consequences like unemployment and relative deprivation could seem not just earth-shattering but also the worst scenarios. All this however pales into insignificance when compared to blood, death and human suffering.
As a tail-end to this insight into the Libya situation I would like to quote a story highlighting how wrong articles can be. Please bear with me if the contents you are reading will prove to be completely wrong, unprophetic or wholly out of date. A few months ago the Economist had the following comment: “One of the obvious difficulties with lead times in the magazine industry is the way events can overtake stories. This is problem enough with a weekly publication such as The Economist, but the results can look even more bizarre in a monthly. Thus in an article in its April issue titled ‘The 15 best places to see right now’, Conde Nast traveller told readers to head to Libya. It said ‘With Syria being called the new Morocco and Beirut the new Provinectown, travelers with an eye for antiquity are moving on to Libya.’ The magazine went to press on February 15th, the same day as thousands of Libyans held a rally to protest against the arrest of a well-known human-rights campaigner. In an online version of the article the editor points out the unsuitability of the recommendation.”
How apt to keep this in mind when reading this appraisal and realising that if I am off the mark in some or all of my comments think of the time it takes for articles to be written, processed, checked and ultimately published.

This article first appeared in The Executive

There is bright light in the tunnel

There is light in the tunnel and I do hope no language purist will write in indignantly saying that I have no idea how to write (I hate having to agree with my fawning critics). I know that, usually, the well-worn cliché says light at the end of the tunnel. But, hey, with the Tignè tunnel the light is all over. Pure delight driving through it and not having to braille-drive into a pitch of darkness. So, hurray, I say.

As far as I know, all tunnels previous to this one were built and had their lighting designed by the central authorities better known as “the government”. So maybe there is a story there which I don’t need to elaborate on lest I will be seen as a progressive turncoat dying to abandon ship to join the merry band of “arrivisti” and other rainbow folk who have had a Tarsus-like change in their life and joined the muscat-eer band. No, I don’t need to bash our government or the ministers. They know how to do that and self-immolate with the zest and flair no marketing guru could ever manage to better or even emulate.

The government right now seems to be like a driver on our roads taking us, the passengers, to our desired destination. So merry driver is right now merry no more; he seems to be more of a grumpy bus driver of old. But he is still steady and a good driver with a vision and a good head for proper and significant trouble. But he cannot seem to avoid the potholes he faces: he seems to radar straight to each of those holes. So, first, in his other role of custodian of the streets and defender of the right to pothole our island, he leaves the holes gaping at him (and us) and then he drives straight into them with gusto and silly charm. We, the sillier passengers, shake and rattle and feel the holes down in our spine and remain shaking well after the ride.

But, at least, we get to the destination, so let’s be thankful for all sweet and small mercies. I said I won’t bash the government or its erstwhile exponents. But can I say nothing about our public transport? I know a lot is being said but I will put in my two-cent piece of sense or absolute nonsense.

I believe wholeheartedly in the new service and know, hope and prophesy that, in some months’ time, we will all be breathing our great sigh of relief that we have Arriva. If we do breathe next to an Arriva bus we can actually sigh and breathe in normally unlike what used to happen when those quaint, bone-shaking, pollution-coughing buses graced our land. Unlike most people of the land, I dare say God graced us with a mighty Austin and rid us of charlatans called drivers of “xarabanks”.

It’s sadly true that Arriva got it nearly all wrong. They have a lot of homework to swot on to get the situation properly in hand and get commuters not just to their destination in air-conditioned splendour but also on time. It’s nice to see happy smiling drivers instead of grumpy characters but it would also be good to see commuters happy all the time or most of the time. Cos, hey, remember we are in sunny, hot and sweltering Malta, so all gentle-folk turn into mega-grumblers even if you give them everything right, orderly and as they ordered it.

Going back to the Tignè tunnel, I think the trick would have been to get a private company based in Malta and controlled by one of our enterprising men and women to guide and instruct Arriva. Then we would have had proper-sited bus stops and names, proper routes and proper-sized buses.

I have no clue who the individuals or entities who were consulted by Arriva are and, for all I know, they could be the nicest folk around but I have a slight suspicion it was a government entity. This entity would have had a few million meetings and long sheaves of minutes printed in quadruple and sent to all heads and assistant heads and myriad other heads to keep and classify as super urgent and top secret. Proposals and counter-proposals and committees and sub-committees and secretaries to assist and supervisors to supervise and super-supervisors to control the supervisors and a never-ending stream of bureaucracy and red tape would have given us the result we have had with Arriva.

Arriva will eventually get it right. Here’s my cent’s worth of advice: change your consultants, dump your strategists, stop consulting the government and get a small Maltese outfit that knows the country and its ways to get you on your feet and turn you into a real success story. Our country deserves your success.

In the meantime, I think dear Austin and his Cabinet colleagues should eat that famously humble pie and immediately order an advertising campaign to plaster the whole country saying “We know the public transport service is having some problems. This is caused by a drastic dramatic change that has not been handled perfectly by the authorities and/or by the company chosen. We apologise for all delays, all missed appointments, wasted productive time and endless but justified frustration. We are confident that this situation will not take long to be rectified partially and in time we promise it will be corrected completely. We ask you to continue being patient and to cooperate as much as you can to avoid any more bad blood and maybe avoid real blood from being shed. We are monitoring the service and we will make sure we and the company chosen will eventually get it right for your comfort and well-being.”

If this isn’t done while all the frustration and terrible situation is still prevalent, the people, local and foreign alike, can never feel engaged in this new venture and will not accept the problems they are facing. It is the least the authorities can do to show they are concerned and engaged enough. And visitors to this fair land of ours will not go back home saying we are still a Third World country.

And, finally, please dear minister don’t ask one of your people to write the copy for the ads.

This article appeared in The Times August 5 2011